


Let Go

by TolkienGirlArchive (TolkienGirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Echo Cave, Episode: s03e06 Ariel, F/M, Unrequited Love, at least Hook THINKS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 12:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18151955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirlArchive
Summary: Hook tells his secret.





	Let Go

"How is that your darkest secret?"

There's an edge to her tone—reproach, but none of the usual world-weary humor with which she usually deflects his tongue-in-cheek advances. This time, there's pain, frustration. His mind flits briefly across the idea that perhaps she's disappointed—disappointed that he is resorting once more to humor in this entirely serious situation, or worse yet, that he's telling the truth, and that he isn't the unpredictable enigma that she had suspected ( _hoped_?).

He's surprised that she cares so much, but that almost doesn't matter. Because he cares—cares enough to give more than he had once believed he could.

"It's what the kiss exposed."

The piqued disbelief that had clouded her features a moment ago fades, and all that is left is fear. She's absolutely terrified, and he sees in her eyes all possible proof that she is a Lost Girl—the one who never gave Peter Pan the satisfaction of hearing her cry, the one who has the power to save everyone but herself.

_"I can't…take a chance…that I'm wrong about you."_

Her words, spoken when she abandoned him in the giant's lair, make all the more sense now…and he no longer blames her for that ( _Not that he has for some time. They're more than even_ ). But he wishes he could find the words to tell her, that she doesn't have to take any chances with him—that what he's doing right now is just giving, giving her all he has ( _the truth_ ) and asking nothing in return.

So he speaks, and the words roll out as softly as the waves of a calm sea ( _but he's still drowning_ ).

"My secret is I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of my first love, my Milah. To believe that I could find someone else. That is, until I met you."

He can almost feel the shock radiating from Snow White, and from the Prince (who is probably more surprised that he  _said_  it than that he feels it), but he isn't looking at them. The only one he sees is Emma.  _His_  Emma who will never now be truly his.

She doesn't speak. She can't speak, and he's almost grateful. Because there is nothing she can say in this moment that can change what he just did—offering his heart so that she could break it if she needed to—but at the same time, in some remote region of his mind, he realizes that this is the first time he's ever stunned Emma Swan into silence, yet for once it doesn't feel like a victory.

Before they can move, the earth shudders and trembles and he wonders if she cares that he'll never stop loving her.

He hears Snow's secret and the Prince's, but they will mean more to him later. For now he only has eyes for Emma and ears for the bridge, which with every heart-rent secret rumbles closer, sealing their path ( _and his fate_ ).

And it hurts more than anything as he tries not to remember what her lips felt like against his, how for the first time he could feel again, and how he had ( _just maybe_ ) believed even for a second that they could be happy.

_One time thing._

And there it had been—and was—, crumbling around him again. History repeating itself again and again and again in a land where time wasn't supposed to pass. Perhaps if he had been as clever and cold as he once had been, he wouldn't have let himself go this far—because, after all, he'd always known that the only feeling left for him this side of heartbreak was pain.

_(But pain willingly suffered comforts even as it crushes)._

He'd gambled everything away a long time ago—it is fitting, then, that his heart is the last bargaining chip. He can only be grateful that he had been the one to choose to give it up—for her.

At least he can say he knows how to love—deeply and passionately, even if it is ever only in loss.

Now, she walks forward—forward to Neal, who is, despite everything, the hero…who has escaped the Dark One and Neverland and consequences and who isn't a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem and a re-broken heart.

He lets her go.

_Villains don't get happy endings._


End file.
